This Government's shameless pandering to all things Islamic has got it nowhere. From panderer-in-chief, the BBC:

The Foreign Office is to make a protest to the Iranian ambassador in London after his country's supreme leader called the UK government "evil".

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comments as he appealed for an end to protests about election results.

He said Western nations were showing "their enmity against the Islamic Republic system and the most evil of them is the British government".

Ambassador Rasul Movaheddian has been summoned to a Foreign Office meeting.

BBC political correspondent James Landale said the most senior officials at the Foreign Office wanted to find out from Mr Movaheddian why Ayatollah Khamenei had attacked the British government in this way.

The suspicion at the Foreign Office is that Britain is being used as "proxy" for the United States for "domestic rhetorical purposes", because Iran does not want to endanger its improving relations with America, added our correspondent.

A caller to the radio show in which Rebecca was interviewed observed that Islam had been around for 1400 years, and the internet for only 14. He intended this as a message of hope - knowledge about Islam may break its stranglehold. This may be true, but I'm not sure how well it applies in Iran, where opposition seems to be to the regime, rather than to Islam itself.

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